Animal Experimentation Essay Research Paper Imagine being

Animal Experimentation Essay, Research Paper

Imagine being dragged from your bed, strapped into a chair, eyes and mouth forced open, chemicals injected into your body, irritating solutions flushed into your eyes and corrosive substances applied to your skin (Product 1). It almost sounds like something straight from a horror film, but even more terrifying is discovering that this excessive torture does indeed exist. Every year, 25-50 million animals are killed through experimentation, and this is in the United States alone (What is Vivisection, 1). As the

years go on, these numbers grow and the killing of animals through experimentation becomes more of a common practice throughout the world. In Australia, over half of the country s population uses prescription drugs which have all been tested on animals (Vivisection, 1). Experimentation on animals, though claimed to be useful, is both cruel and inhumane.

The term vivisection means the cutting of or operation on a living organism usually for physiological or pathological investigation, commonly causing distress to the subject.

For years now, animals have been used in trying to find new cures for human diseases as well as for the testing of new products. This may seem like a good cause on the outside, provided you don t hear about what really goes on behind the scenes. There have been cases where electrodes have been painfully placed inside the brains of chimpanzees for study purposes (Baird and Rosenbaum, 78). Other ordinary practices include rabbits having chemicals washed into their eyes simply to test out a new hair product (Product 2). Knowing this, one must weigh the pro s and con s of animal experimentation and decide whether what we gain from it, if anything, outweighs the suffering these innocent animals are put through.

One commonly asked question when debating the topic of vivisection is whether or not animals can feel pain. For some reason this seems to be such a controversial topic surrounded by many scientific tests. These tests have concluded that certain animals can feel pain (Bateson 1). For example, it has been very hard to prove or disprove whether or not insects can feel pain since they don t have a central nervous system, but this seems insignificant in the big picture since most scientific experimentation does not take place on insects. This goes for most invertebrates (that is animals without a backbone, eg. fish). On the flip side, it has been shown that vertebrae animals can indeed feel pain, and some more than others (Bateson 3). Even without all of the highly complicated tests, one can clearly observe that a dog will yelp if it s tail is grabbed or ear is pulled. With all this, how can one justify the torture of animals.

Those who oppose animal rights claim that animals simply are too different from humans, and unlike humans animals don t live by moral views and therefore, are not part of the human moral community (Baird and Rosenbaum, 27). This is true, animals are by no means considered humans. They coexist with us, live in our homes and surround us everywhere we turn, but they are not humans by any stretch of the imagination. Another argument used to justify vivisection is that it provides extremely useful data to be applied to humans in the field of medicine. Advances in the medical field are a great accomplishment and are urged on by many, but when it comes at the expense of life, even of an animal, support for such research begins to dwindle. More critics argue that if animals are to be given rights, does it apply to all species. Must we treat dragonflies the same as dolphins. (Baird and Rosenbaum 29). This is a good point. Granted, protection of every single living organism would be difficult and most likely unnecessary. A line must be drawn somewhere.

First and foremost, it has been established that animal can indeed feel pain. With that in mind, one must ask themselves what right do we as humans have to inflict pain on anyone or anything. We haven t any, especially to something that poses no threat to us. Of course, there are exceptions. Let s say you re attacked by a tiger while on safari in Africa or something along those lines. In a situation like that, it is justifiable to harm an animal in self defense, but surely an innocent rabbit strapped down to a lab table poses no threat to anyone or anything, therefore the painful experimentation on these animals is unjustifiable.

Many people who support animal experimentation do so because they believe that testing on animals has brought and has the potential to bring about extensive advances in the field of medicine. This is somewhat fuzzy area, but it is a proven fact that there is not one animal species the biological reactions of which are identical to humans (Fano, 50-51). Chimpanzees are very similar to humans, made up of nearly 99% of the same genetic material (Central 3). However, just because a certain species has a genetic makeup similar to that of humans does not necessarily mean that their immune systems function the same as ours. For example, chimps as mentioned above, are very close to humans genetically, but are not susceptible to many of the diseases that afflict humans (including AIDS), nor do they have the same reaction to drugs and procedures as we do (Central 3). With this in mind, it makes it even harder to justify the experimentation on animals if the results of the